This invention relates to biometric authentication technology, and, in particular, relates to a technique for enrolling templates in a system performing biometric authentication using multiple kinds of templates.
Biometric authentication systems authenticate individuals on the basis of their biometric information, usually, such as fingerprints, veins, irises, faces, and the like. A biometric authentication system preliminarily obtains and stores a user's biometric information, and performs individual authentication by determining whether the user's biometric information obtained in the authentication process is the same person's biometric information which has preliminarily been stored. There are generally two types of biometric authentication systems: the stand alone type that obtains, stores, and verifies biometric information in a single apparatus and the network authentication type which is comprised of a terminal for obtaining biometric information and a server for storing and verifying the biometric information.
In the network authentication type of biometric authentication system, a terminal for preliminarily enrolling biometric information (hereinafter, referred to as a enroll terminal) obtains a user's biometric information and creates a feature value (hereinafter, referred to as a template) to be used in comparison from the obtained biometric information, and a server for performing authentication (hereinafter, referred to as an authentication server) enrolls the created template. When performing biometric authentication, a terminal including a biometric information input module and an authentication result display module (hereinafter, referred to as an authentication terminal) obtains a user's biometric information and transmits a template created from the obtained biometric information to the authentication server. The authentication server compares the received template with the preliminarily enrolled template, determines whether the user is the person identical to the enrolled user, and transmits the determination result to the authentication terminal.
Such a biometric authentication system requires preliminary enrollment of all templates to be used in authentication. To use multiple kinds of templates in authentication, it is necessary that the multiple kinds of templates be created from biometric information and be enrolled preliminarily.
Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2003-050783 (Document 1) discloses a combined authentication system using multiple kinds of biometric information. The combined authentication system preliminarily enrolls all kinds of templates to be used in authentication in an authentication server. Afterwards, a user inputs the multiple kinds of biometric information to an authentication terminal to be authenticated.
Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2008-310743 (Document 2) discloses a combined authentication system using faces and fingerprints. The combined authentication system obtains facial data and fingerprint data from a user and authenticates the user with the preliminarily enrolled facial data and fingerprint data. If the authentication is successful, the combined authentication system automatically updates the facial data to use it in the future authentication.